Book Review: Crimson Reign (Blood Heir #3) by Amélie Wen Zhao

Title: Crimson Reign (Blood Heir #3)
Author: Amélie Wen Zhao
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publication Date: March 1st, 2022
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

“The Red Tigress, Ana Mikhailov, has returned to Cyrilia, but the country she once called home has fallen under a dark rule. Across the land, the Empress Morganya is tightening her grip on Affinites and non-Affinites alike. Ana dealt a blow to the Empress when she and her allies turned back Morganya’s troops in Bregon, but she couldn’t stop Morganya from gaining possession of the last remaining Bregonian siphon: a dangerous new weapon with the power to steal Affinities.

Ana’s forces are scattered, and her tenuous alliance with the Cyrilian rebel group, the Red Cloaks, is becoming more frayed by the day. What’s worse, she’s lost her Affinity to blood and without it, Ana barely knows who she is anymore–or if she has the strength to defeat Morganya.

Morganya’s reign of terror is close to crushing the nation Ana was born to rule. And now Ana will finally face the sinister empress, but will she survive? Will anyone? And will her Empire welcome her back to the throne, or turn her out to survive on her own.

The Affinites and Non-Affinites of Cyrilia will determine Ana’s future, if Morganya doesn’t kill her first.” (Goodreads)

Since book two was a mixed bag for me I was very wary when starting this one. Although there were things that I definitely liked more in the last book than book two, it still didn’t give me the love I felt for the first book in the trilogy.

The book is told through multiple point-of-views just like book two. I understand continuing this into the final book as there are a lot of times where the main characters are not together. I get the distance but it is also one of my biggest gripes. Since there is supposed to be a relationship between Ramson and Ana it just felt very meh to keep them a part for long and then to have some big plot twists that involved them when they finally made it back together was just not the right choice for me. It’s fine to up the ante but it just was my least favorite thing. There are also times that the characters dialogue felt too similar to others and it was hard to differentiate the two.

There is a lot of action because of the war going on which made the book easy to get into. I liked the action but, and this is a big but, some of the fights against powerful people felt so lackluster! I just really hates when that happens.

I know that I have said a lot of complaints and you are probably wondering why I still liked it, lol. Well, it does wrap up the trilogy nicely. There are no loose ends and I thought it ended well.

Overall, it was good and at least I can write off one more series to finish from my list!